Global assessment of environment, health and economic impact of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19)

Abstract

The institution of social distancing and punitive measures to contain the spread of COVID-19 through human-to-human transmission has environmental, health and economic impact. While the global pandemic has led to the enhancement of the health system and decline of emissions, economic development appears deteriorating. Here, we present the global environmental, health and economic dimension of the effect of COVID-19 using qualitative and empirical assessments. We report the health system policies, environmental sustainability issues, and fiscal, monetary and exchange rate measures introduced during lockdown across countries. While air pollution is reported to have declined, municipal and medical waste is increasing. The COVID-19 global pandemic uncertainty ranks the UK as the country with the highest uncertainty level among 143 countries. The USA has introduced 100% of pre-COVID-19 crisis level GDP, the highest policy cut-rate among 162 countries. Science, innovation, research and development underpin COVID-19 containment measures implemented across countries. Our study demonstrates the need for future research to focus on environment-health-economic nexus-a trilemma that has a potential trade-off.

Significant impacts of COVID-19 lockdown on urban air pollution in Kolkata (India) and amelioration of environmental health

“…The share of SO 2 , NO 2 , CO 2 , O 3 , PM 10 and PM 2.5 during the month of March and April 2020 across the 22 cities in India has been compared with the concentration level of these parameters during the same time period in 2017 and the study reflects the positive modifications of air quality during March and April in 2020 (Sharma et al 2020 ). It is evident that various preventive measures with social distancing norms have been taken to regulate the transmission of COVID-19 pandemic, whereas these preventive measures directly affect the growth of global economy, human health and environment (Sarkodie and Owusu 2020 ). Similarly, another study established that social distancing rule is the most effective way for administration to regulate the contagious nature of COVID-19 pandemic in India (Bherwani et al 2020 ).…”

Understanding COVID-19 transmission through Bayesian probabilistic modeling and GIS-based Voronoi approach: a policy perspective

“…The contact among people of the different populations determines the aspect that characterizes the rate of transmission pattern in civic places and families, and this virus exhibited more than usual transmission rate (Guo et al 2020;Sarkodie & Owusu 2020). Transmission of coronavirus is divided into four genera, α (alpha)-β (beta)-γ (gamma)−δ (delta) CoV, where α and β are able to infect vertebrate, γ and δ are able to infect birds (Guo et al 2020;Adnan Shereen et al 2020;Roy and Milton 2004).…”

Environment and COVID-19: Pollutants, impacts, dissemination, management and recommendations for facing future epidemic threats

“…This dynamic in the factors involved and the political decisions taken to address them (e.g. as effective containment, Asamoah et al, 2020 ) influence on environmental health and economic systems in the different countries ( Sarkodie and Owusu, 2020a ).…”

“…The worldwide COVID-19 pandemic has caused various positive impacts on the environment and the climate ( Sarkodie and Owusu, 2020a ). A global daily CO 2 emission decrease about 17% has been estimated, reaching CO 2 emission levels similar to those in 2006 ( Le Quéré et al, 2020 ).…”

“…The global emergency committee indicated the need for early detection, quarantine, and rapid treatment ( Sohrabi et al, 2020 ). This pandemic has caused more uncertainty and debate globally than previous ones such as SARS (2002–2003), avian influenza (2003–2009), swine flu (2009–2010), and Ebola (2014–2016), and most of its impacts are still uncertain ( Sarkodie and Owusu, 2020a ). However, all the evidence so far indicates that these pandemics are not random diseases, but a consequence of inappropriate interaction between humans and wild fauna.…”